Shake Down
by Simbelmyne
Summary: [MGS3] After subduing the Ocelots at Rassvet, Snake makes sure he won't be followed. One-shot. Spoilers, light slash [SxO], Sokolov!


_Disclaimer: Metal Gear Solid is the property of Hideo Kojima. I am not profiting from this work. It is a work of fiction written by a fan, for fans. Not for sale. Please do not redistribute without notifying me. _

_A/N: This is just some silliness based on a picture drawn by sharkychan on LiveJournal. http: Beware! This fic contains bad language, light slash, and gratuitous amounts of...SOKOLOV. Oh noes!_

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Shake-Down  
_By Simbelmynë_

"Pretty...good...?"

He looked like he wanted to keep bragging, but Ocelot collapsed before he could grate out a few more taunts. Snake crouched by the major, waiting to be sure that the young man wasn't going to get up and attack him again, but Ocelot was still. He nudged the boy lightly with his foot. Ocelot didn't open his eyes. He kicked him hard in the shin. Ocelot didn't stir. He poked him in the eye with a long stick he had found. Nothing. Ocelot was out cold. Finally.

Snake stood and wiped the sweat out of his eyes with one hand, sighing as he moved amongst the bodies. Sokolov had run off to God only knew where, and here he was, surrounded by corpses and unconscious men. The attack by the Ocelot unit had shaken him up a bit, not to mention the way that Ocelot had mistaken him for The Boss...

He scratched his stubble as he stared at the unconscious major with interest. This boy couldn't _possibly_ have anything to do with The Boss; he wasn't even smart enough to familiarize himself with new techniques before using them. She would have given him two black eyes and three broken bones if she caught him doing something that stupid. And yet, he had known her—no, no, he had known _of _her, Snake thought, correcting himself. If Ocelot had known The Boss, he wouldn't have gotten her confused with Snake. But still, from the words he had used—"So _this_ is the legendary Boss..."—it sounded like he was expecting her.

So many questions, and only one possible place to turn for answers. With one hand, he adjusted the frequency on his radio and placed a call.

"Major, do you read me?"

"I read you, Snake," a British voice said in his ear. "Are you all right?"

Snake shrugged, even though he knew the major couldn't see him, and kicked one of the Ocelots in the head a little harder than he'd intended to. "I've run into a few snags," he said, frowning. He wanted to relay this information to Major Tom face-to-face, but that simply wasn't an option. He gave the major a quick, dirty summary of what the MIA Sokolov had told him in the abandoned factory, while keeping his Mk22 pointed at the unconscious Ocelots—just in case.

"Sokolov was being guarded by the KGB and hunted by GRU? Snake, it sounds like this could be even hotter than Cuba," Major Tom said when Snake had finished, sounding concerned.

Snake shook his head. "I don't like it. Something about this whole thing stinks."

"I agree," Major Tom said, and Snake could imagine him nodding. "You'd better hurry."

"Sokolov ran off by himself, but I'll catch up to him," Snake assured the major.

"We're counting on you," Major Tom said before he killed the connection.

Snake switched off his radio and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He knew he shouldn't waste any time before he went to look for the scientist, but his stomach was growling loudly, and he also knew that he was going to need all his strength on the return trip to protect Sokolov. He thought mournfully of the ex-Calorie Mates that Para-Medic had provided for him. Back in Dolinovodno, he'd tentatively sampled one and had been so overcome by their wonderful taste that he'd lost control. In less than a minute, he had eaten them both.

_'In hindsight, that was pretty stupid,'_ he thought as he opened up his backpack and dug around. His search was fruitless: in his haste to rescue Sokolov, he hadn't bothered to hunt for anything, and the only thing in his backpack was one sad-looking Siberian Ink Cap, which he spit out with a curse as soon as it hit his tastebuds.

The hunger was starting to give him a mild headache. He rubbed his temple and looked down. Ocelot's outstretched arm caught Snake's eye, and he raised an eyebrow. The major's skin was smooth and clean, and he didn't have any marks of wear and tear on his body—odd, considering he was a military man. His face looked a little hollow, but it was because of his high cheekbones, not malnourishment. In fact, at a glance, Snake couldn't see anything that suggested the kid ate anything but the best. Hmm. Maybe he'd have something good.

Snake rubbed his hands together, braced himself, and hoisted Ocelot's torso into the air by the thighs. Holding on tightly, he gave Ocelot a good, rough shaking, trying to jar loose anything useful. Ocelot's crotch brushed against his hips, and the young major muttered something incomprehensible. Snake felt his face growing hot.

"Dammit." Snake moved the major away from his Danger Zone and continued shaking him down. "It's a damn good thing no one can see this," he growled as he shook Ocelot vigorously, waiting for the boy to drop something. Eventually, a small box slid out of Ocelot's pocket and fell to the ground. Snake dropped the major on his head and picked it up.

It was a mousetrap.

"What the hell!" Snake barked. He seriously thought about kicking Ocelot awake, just so he could ask the boy what the _hell_ he was doing carrying around a _mousetrap_ instead of something _useful,_ like ammunition, or, heaven forbid, _food._ Disgusted, he pocketed the mousetrap anyway. Who knew, it might come in handy.

However, Snake would not be so easily deterred from his search. He picked up Ocelot's hips once again and shook. Ocelot's arms waved uselessly

"C'mon, dammit!" Snake swore. "Gimme something!" He was shaking the boy so vigorously, he almost didn't notice that his radio was beeping. Reluctantly he abandoned his search and answered it.

"Snake?" Major Tom's strict voice reverberated in his ear. "Have you found Sokolov yet?"

"No."

"Why not? Where are you? What are you doing?"

Snake thought very, very carefully about this. "Dragging an unconscious man around by his hips" sounded sketchy even in his head. "Seeing what Ocelot's hiding in his pants" didn't sound so great either. He opted for the socially acceptable answer: "Looking for a new silencer."

"Good God, Snake, that was a brand-new silencer. Have you been shooting at everything that moves?"

"And a few things that don't," Snake said with a grin, thinking back to the Golovas he had shot out of a tree for no real reason. Pity he hadn't scooped them up when he had the chance, though.

He heard Tom grumble something to Para-Medic that sounded a bit like 'trigger-happy' before the major spoke again: "Well, Snake, if you need supplies that badly, shake down the soldiers you knocked out. One of them is sure to have something you can use. Take whatever you need. Try not to take too long, though; every second you're away from Sokolov puts him in danger."  
"Got it."

"Oh, and Snake?"

"Yeah?"

"Those GRU soldiers aren't going to stay unconscious forever. If I were you, I'd make sure they couldn't follow me, if you know what I mean."

"Got it, Major."

He killed the connection and stared at the dead and unconscious bodies strewn about his feet. Ocelot's scowling face caught his eye.

Snake smirked.

_'So...make sure he can't follow me, eh?'_

Almost immediately after he'd been assigned command of his own Spetsnaz unit, Ocelot had realized that the age-old lament of great power bringing great responsibility was, much to his chagrin, absolutely true.

_"Whoever he was, he didn't kill any of them." _

"Well, then—not that I'm complaining, but who shot all these KGB grunts?"

"Major Ocelot, it seems."

"He's a damn good shot, that kid."

It wasn't that he couldn't take the pressure of responsibility. As a matter of fact, he prided himself on being pretty level-headed when it came to making decisions about his unit. But sometimes, the stress of his rank was enough to make him want to just pack up and 'defect' right back to America.

"There's a slight problem with the men, though."

"Besides the obvious, you mean. Is someone unaccounted for?"

"They can't find Danya Vassilivich, Colonel Volgin."

"Vassilivich?"

Not because of the occasional accidental death during search-and-destroy exercises; he could handle those, even if they did bring more paperwork than he cared to deal with.

"The radio man."

"Is that why no one bothered to tell me that Sokolov was escaping!"

"Colonel! Please, don't—AARG!"

"Fools!"

And it wasn't from the rigorous exercises that he went through with his men on a daily basis; he had designed that program himself to weed out the slackers and weaklings. He wanted to command only the best that Russia had to offer.

_"Sir! Don't kill him! We just received a radio transmission from Voyevoda! She says she knows where Sokolov is heading, and she plans to cut him and his rescuer off at Dolinovodno. She wants you to meet her there." _

"Huh. Rouse the Ocelots if you can. Send a message to Bolshaya Past Base, and tell them to get a helicopter to Rassvet to pick up these...idiots_...who call themselves soldiers." _

And it certainly wasn't because of the impertinence of those men who resented being led by a twenty-  
year-old; after all, he didn't wear those spurs because he expected to ride off into the sunset on a white stallion anytime soon.

"What about Major Ocelot's...um...'situation,' Colonel Volgin?"

"...yes, wake him, too. Quickly. I want him to take this as a learning experience."

"He's going to be furious about this, colonel."

"Good."

All these things were simply nuisances, but they weren't the source of his growing dislike of military life.

"Sir, wake up!"

Fucking early wake-up calls. He usually had the newest recruit, Filip, wake up earlier and then wake him up so he could sleep in a few extra minutes before taking the ten-mile jog in the cold mist at four in the morning with the rest of his men, but apparently Filip was also sleeping in this morning: that harsh, angry voice certainly wasn't anything like Filip's tentative, apologetic mewling of "Major? Major...?"

He could feel fingers digging into the skin on his shoulder. That was _not_ standard wake-up procedure. As a rule, no one was allowed to touch him before six AM. Ugh. It was too _cold_ to be waking up, but he had to teach this impudent soldier a lesson. He struggled back to consciousness and swatted at the offending hand. As he blinked the sleep out of his eyes, the ruined ceiling of the abandoned factory pulsed in and out of focus in time with the throbbing in his head. Looking to his left, he could see a GRU soldier, wearing the standard balaclava and applying gauze and a bandage to his arm.

"Colonel! The major's come around!" the soldier called. His words sounded far-off and fuzzy to Ocelot, as if he was hearing them from the bottom of a well. "Are you all right, Major Ocelot?"

Ocelot tried to sit up, but the soldier held him back; then a stabbing pain ripped through his head, and he laid back down. Vision swimming and feeling like his mouth was filled with cotton, he said thickly, "Drowsy...and a little...cold...but...yes." He looked at the soldier critically. "You're...not an Ocelot, are you?"

"No, sir. First-class field physician Dr. Mikhail Mikhailovich Yezerov. I don't blame you for being drowsy, sir; the bastard must've shot you with a dozen of these," Dr. Yezerov said, holding up what looked like a dart. "A tranquilizer round. I removed them all and gave you a small dose of adrenaline to bring you around, but I wouldn't recommend you try anything more complicated than sitting for at least twelve hours." He held up Ocelot's discarded Makarov. "Like this? Forget it."

"Done," Ocelot murmured. "Why the...hell...was he shooting me...with tranquilizer darts...?"

"Probably to make sure you wouldn't follow him for _quite_ a while. He also shot you in the arm and legs, but with very real bullets," Dr. Yezerov said, holding up Ocelot's limp, bandaged arm. Ocelot squinted. His vision was still very, very blurry, and his senses were duller than a rock, but he was pretty sure that he couldn't see a sleeve over his pale flesh.

"My uniform..."

"That's...well..."

"Did you see his face, Ocelot!"  
Slowly, Ocelot turned and looked at the ankles of the furious Colonel Volgin standing above him. Sparks randomly popped from Volgin's fingers and small bolts of bright blue electricity darted from knuckle to knuckle. It had always amazed Ocelot how Volgin could handle electricity like that. Someday, before he completed his mission, he was really going to need to learn how to do that.

Ocelot was too drowsy to understand Volgin's question. "Whose?" he asked. Ugh. Even his lips were numb.

Volgin cracked his knuckles. "The man who did this to you, of course!"

"D...did what...?" he asked. He tried to sit up again, but decided against it. Ow. Jesus Christ, he felt like he'd been run over by a goddamn _tank._ Whoever that spy was, he had some incredible skills.

The doctor cleared his throat and started to say something, but Volgin roared, "Look at yourself, boy!"

With a great effort, he raised his head a few inches and peered down...across his _naked_ chest, his _naked_ arms, his _naked_ legs, and his _naked_...

Well.

So _that's_ why he'd been feeling so cold.

The thrushes of Dolinovodno swept skywards in a wave of whirling feathers and frightened cries. He wasn't sure what had startled them, but he thought he might have heard a horrified scream echo faintly across the canyon. Sokolov shuddered and watched longingly as the birds raced west. If only he could fly with them, all the way to America, to his family and away from his death machines!

Well, soon he would. Soon, that CIA man would come and return him to his home...Sokolov shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot as he stared at the vast crevice before him. A small sound made him jump, until he realized it was only the hornets in their nests. He reached out and steadied himself on the nearby tree. He wasn't a strong man. His heart couldn't take much more of this. Desperately, he crossed himself and tried to stay calm, waiting, waiting...

"Found you."

Sokolov let out a small shriek in spite of himself and whirled around, his heart leaping into his throat. The CIA man holstered his gun and held up his hands. "Don't worry," he said. "Just me. Sorry if I scared you."

"What about the GRU?" Sokolov asked, wringing his hands. He'd had other run-ins with GRU before, and he'd sooner throw himself into the crevice before he repeated the experience.

"They won't be following us," the CIA man assured him. "I made sure of it."

"I s..." Sokolov trailed off. He hadn't really been paying attention to his rescuer's appearance when the rugged agent had appeared in the doorway of the abandoned factory. After all, there had been more important things to worry about, like making sure that no one could use his death-machines ever again. But something was definitely, _definitely_ different. The man's shirt seemed cleaner; his equipment was neatly tucked away; he was...decorated?

"What are you wearing?"

The CIA man looked down at his uniform. "What, this?"

"Yes."

"Ocelot's uniform," he responded shiftily, scuffing one well-polished boot in the dust.  
"...oh." So it hadn't been his imagination. Well, it certainly didn't look _bad_ on him, Sokolov had to admit. He just wasn't so sure he was comfortable with the idea of one man stripping another of his clothes and leaving the victim naked and vulnerable to anyone who happened to wander across him. "May I ask why?"

"I like it."

There was a very pregnant pause.

"It looks good on me."

A gentle breeze blew through Dolinovodno, rustling the leaves and exciting the hornets. Somewhere downstream, Sokolov could hear the faint roar of the waterfall.

"Well, ah...yes, yes, I...suppose it..."

"And to make sure that he can't follow us."

"I see."

"Yeah."

After another minute, Sokolov asked, "Did you take the whole thing?"

"Yes."

"I mean...the _whole_ thing?"

"Yeah."

"No, no, I mean...the _whole_ thing."

"You mean, did I take his..."

"Yes."

"...yeah."

"Oh."

Another minute of very uncomfortable silence passed.

"...I see."

"It...seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Oh, I'm sure it did."

"Look, I just do what I've gotta to get the mission done, okay? Do you want to get back to America or don't you?" his rescuer asked uncomfortably, adjusting Ocelot's belt around his waist.

"Yes, of course!"

"Then let's go," he said gruffly.

As Sokolov followed the CIA man across the bridge, he thought, _'It's not that weird, it's not_ that _weird...Just remember, it could be worse...he could be wearing that duck suit again...' _

End

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_A/N: Please review. A link to the picture can be found in my profile. Make sure you go and praise that as well!_


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